Following two years of exceptional home value appreciation and double-digit growth in many areas, home value growth will likely slow across Australia in 2016.

There will be no big short in Australia despite the hype following the release of the Hollywood blockbuster.

While there is some uncertainty about the property market I am seeing plenty of buyers out there!

This is what the expert forecasters at CoreLogic-Moody’s Analytics are saying. To back this up they launched the Australian Forecast Home Value Index inn March 2016.

The new service will provide quarterly projection of the trend of residential home values across the country over the next 10 years.

“We are excited to partner with Moody’s Analytics to launch this Forecast Index to provide a unique and critical perspective on Australia’s most valuable asset class, currently valued in excess of $6.4 trillion AUD,” said Craig Mackenzie, CoreLogic EGM, Banking & Finance.

“On the outlook for the housing market nationally, we expect house price appreciation to slow in 2016. Our forecast reflects lower income growth as the Australian economy transitions away from mining-related investment, as well as the strong build-up of housing supply over the past two years,” said Alaistair Chan, a Sydney-based economist based at Moody’s Analytics.

While growth will be slower in property prices they do not expect the market to fall. This is because accommodative monetary policy (low interest rates), robust rental growth, and reasonable employment growth suggest the right dynamics to support property prices.

Tempering this view a little, Westpac released a more modest view in its latest Red Book that analyses consumer trends. The reports states “The majority of home buyers expect housing prices to be flat or lower in 2016, though more than a third believe they will rise”

“The state breakdown shows price expectations have been volatile across the board but are showing signs of stabilising in NSW, firming in Vic & Qld, and falling away sharply in WA,” the report notes.

“With conditions very uneven across states, auction markets heavily skewed to Syd-Melb and finance data affected by ‘switching’ between investor and owner-occupier segments, turnover is currently the most reliable gauge of total market activity.

In his March 2016 press release, Chielf Economist of Westpac, Bill Evans, states:

“While there was a sharp deterioration in respondents’ views on [whether] real estate as a wise investment relative to December, assessments of ‘time to buy a dwelling’ suggest broader buyer sentiment may be stabilising.

The ‘time to buy a dwelling’ index increased by 5.4% from 99.3 in February to 104.7 in March. This Index is now 3.0% above its level in September but still 13.1% below its level of a year ago.

I can also confirm that have seen plenty of buyers in the market in 2016. To put some numbers to this we had over 650 enquiries on four properties on the north shore in less than two weeks!

While these numbers largely and reflect the lack of stock in the market at the moment they also indicate a lift in buyer sentiment.

Many of the buyers I we spoke to were cashed up and had been looking for 3 months or more which suggests there is pent up buyer demand for property ie it is a good time to sell if you were thinking about it.

Housing stock on market in Mosman (2088) is

down 52% from the peak in 2010

*DISCLAIMER: This post is not intended to be taken as financial advice of any kind. Please consult a licensed financial advisor or accountant for advice.